Indianapolis Colts<\/a> 38-30 in a high-scoring shootout. That result bumped the Texans’ scoring defense to 17.4 points per game, .2 higher than the Seahawks’ finish.<\/p>\nAt the podium Wednesday, Seahawks safety jokingly thanked Colts rookie quarterback Riley Leonard for swinging the result in Seattle’s favor. “That’s cool, thank goodness for Riley Leonard,” Love said with a smile. “That’s a cool thing to accomplish [as a defense]. It wasn’t something we strived for, we just try to play good football.”<\/p>\n
Leonard replaced Phillip Rivers as the Colts’ starting quarterback. The rookie QB out of Notre Dame completed 21-of-34 passing attempts for 270 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception. He also rushed for a third touchdown as a scrambler.<\/p>\n
The Seahawks had the best scoring defense in the NFL. Hopefully that’ll lead to playoff success. On a first-round bye as the NFC conference’s No. 1 seed, Mike Macdonald’s defense will anxiously await their opponent in the divisional round.<\/p>\n
Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 8, 2026, 6:01 a.m. PT The Seattle Seahawks finished the regular season as the NFL\u2019s best scoring…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":663976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[95878,2005,7,2004,392,2381,6,96186,96187,95882,95953,95903,96188,95944,95896,95888,95895,96088,95906,95977,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-663975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-colts","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indianapolis","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflseahawks","16":"tag-sstsnseahawks","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-taghouston-texans","19":"tag-tagindianapolis-colts","20":"tag-tagjulian-love","21":"tag-tagnational-football-conference","22":"tag-tagnational-sports","23":"tag-tagnfl","24":"tag-tagnfl-hub","25":"tag-tagnotre-dame-fighting-irish-football","26":"tag-tagoverall-positive","27":"tag-tagseattle-seahawks","28":"tag-tagsports-news","29":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115859985862093694","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=663975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/663975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/663976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=663975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=663975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=663975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}